Today's News

A fast start by the high-flying Oakdale Eagles proved too much to overcome for the Oliver Springs Bobcats as Oakdale would punch their ticket to the District 4-A Tournament Finals via a 55-51 win on Saturday night.

Following a 5-5 start to the first period, the Eagles left the Bobcats seeing red with a 12-5 tilt to close out the opening period with a 17-10 lead.

Tyler Steinmentz (7 points) led Oakdale in the opening period while Aaron Noe (4 points) guided the Bobcats early on.

Officials Thursday discussed the icing and tree situation around the county.

“We’ve got a lot of areas of the county that are in pretty good shape now,” Roane County Executive Ron Woody said. “The situation that we really have to monitor the next two days is ... we have a lot of trees leaning over the roads in certain areas.... We’re also expecting some more bad weather coming in Friday night/early Saturday morning.”

Icy rain caused fallen trees on Monday, including one across a power line that caused a house fire at 625 Tarwater St., authorities said. It was the home of an elderly woman who is now staying with family.

Rockwood Fire Department’s Capt. Tim Robinson said the tree yanked down the lines and caused it to short out the fuse box and the heating unit in the home. That started fires on both ends of the house in the attic.

A Roane County man died this week from hypothermia, Roane County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Boduch confirmed. Evans Mortuary is handling the funeral arrangements and identified the victim as 44-year-old Tony Dean Stanley.

“He was found yesterday (Wednesday),” Boduch said. “We can’t be sure exactly when the death occurred, but sometime between Sunday and yesterday.”

Boduch said Stanley, who lived south of Rockwood near the Rhea County line, was last seen alive Sunday.

Roane County Road Superintendent Dennis Ferguson said there are still hundreds of trees down around the county.

“It's been bad out there,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “For people who don't have any trees down in their community, if they could get in some of these off area roads and see the trees that were just stacked up on top of each other. I'm talking about going 50-foot and cutting another tree, going 100 yards and cutting three trees. Some trees are so big that we can't even get our equipment out to get to them.”